Fascism flourishes in Gun Free Zones.

That answers the questions about Guns On Campus having a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas.

Just the opposite. Ain’t that something?

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the right of The People

In June 2020, Heriberto Carbajal-Flores was found in possession of a handgun in Little Village, a neighborhood of Chicago.

As an illegal alien, he was charged under 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(5), possession of a firearm by an alien who is illegally or unlawfully in the United States.

  1. It shall be unlawful for any person—
    1. who, being an alien—
      1. is illegally or unlawfully in the United States; or
      2. except as provided in subsection (y)(2), has been admitted to the United States under a nonimmigrant visa (as that term is defined in section 101(a)(26) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(26)));

    to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

Unlawful Acts, 18 U.S.C. § 922 (U.S. 1968)

In her December 2022 order, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman but it this way:

The Court presumes familiarity with its April 13, 2022 order denying Carbajal-Flores’ first motion to dismiss. As relevant here, on June 1, 2020, Defendant possessed a handgun in the Little Village neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Carbajal-Flores contends that he received and used the handgun for self-protection and protection of property. Because of Carbajal-Flores’ citizenship status, he was charged in violation of 18 U.S.C. §922(g)(5), which prohibits any noncitizen who is not legally authorized to be in the United States from “possess[ing] in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.”
United States v. Carbajal-Flores, No. 20-cr-00613, slip op. at 1 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 19, 2022)

In her order, she talks about citizenship status and noncitizen. This is a strange way of putting it, but acceptable.

She then goes on to state the Heller methodology, as affirmed by Bruen correctly. Text, History, and Tradition.

The state argued that Carbajal-Flores was not part of The People because he was not a “law-abiding” resident of the United States. In turn, Carbajal-Flores argued that because the Seventh Circuit held that the Second Amendment protects an illegal alien’s right to keep and bear arms.

That rabbit hole leads to US v. Meza-Rodrigues. This is an opinion issued by a three judge merits panel for the Seventh Circuit court. That panel included the infamous judge Easterbrook and Judge Wood. They are infamous for finding that some firearms aren’t really arms under the plain text of the Second Amendment.

But as this case was about an illegal alien, or as Judge Wood put it whom we will call “unauthorized aliens”United States V. Mariano a. Meza-Rodriguez, 798 F.3d 664 (7th Cir. 2015), they had to twist differently than when it is actual law-abiding citizens.

Judge Wood expressed her grave concerns: The consequences of Meza-Rodriguez’s conviction are not theoretical; his right ever to reenter the United States hangs in the balance.id. at 6.

Yeah, you or me having our rights denied, no big deal, having an illegal alien have to stay in Mexico? That’s a gigantic deal.

Judge Flaum, concurred, saying:

I concur in the judgment. Unlike the majority, I have doubts that the Second Amendment grants undocumented immigrants the right to bear arms, as my read of District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), does not suggest such an expansive interpretation. But because we need not make that determination in reaching our result in this matter, I would follow the Tenth Circuit’s prudential approach and reserve resolution of this challenging constitutional question for a case that compels addressing it. See United States v. Huitron-Guizar, 678 F.3d 1164, 1169–70 (10th Cir. 2012)
id. at 18

I don’t understand why Carbajal-Flores would cite to the concurring opinion, it doesn’t feel as strong as what Judge Wood wrote. Regardless, in Meza-Rodriguez the Seventh Circuit found that illegal aliens are part of “The People”.

What did Heller actually say?

What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. As we said in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U. S. 259, 265 (1990):

“ ‘[T]he people’ seems to have been a term of art employed in select parts of the Constitution. … [Its uses] suggest[t] that ‘the people’ protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.
District of Columbia v. Heller, 467 U.S. 837, 580 (2008)

The Seventh Circuit got it right in Meza-Rodriguez when they found that he was a person[s] who [is] part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.id.. He was smuggled into the US by his parents when he was less than 5 years of age. He had been a part of the community for an extend period of time.

I do not know enough about him to know if he was a “good guy” or a “bad guy”. Regardless, he met the criteria.

To be clear, in my opinion, Meza-Rodriguez was a member of the community and part of The People. He was also an illegal alien that needed to be deported.

On the other hand, Carbajal-Flores does not meet that criteria. He was a bad person, doing bad things, got caught doing it, was deported and should stay deported.

The state argued that he was not part of The People because he was not “law-abiding”. This is a losing argument. It should be a losing argument every time.

I don’t lose my Fifth Amendment protected rights because I did something considered “unlawful.” Nor do I lose my Fourth Amendment protected rights to be secure in my person and papers, just because the state says I am not “law-abiding”.

In 2022, Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman found that Carbajal-Flores was not part of “The People” and thus was not protected under the plain text of the Second Amendment. Carbajal-Flores filed a motion for reconsideration. This time, Judge Coleman found that he was a member of The People and entitled to Second Amendment Protections.

Having found that the plain text was implicated, the state bore the burden of proof to prove that there were regulations from the founding era banning the possession of arms to “non-citizens”.

The state failed. Judge Coleman found The noncitizen possession statute, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(5), violates the Second Amendment as applied to Carbajal-Flores. Thus, the Court grants Carbajal-Flores’ motion to dismissUnited State of America v. Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, No. 20-cr-00613, slip op. at 7 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 8, 2024)

Of note, this is an “as applied” finding. It does not extend to any other illegal alien. It only applies to Carbajal-Flores. The order can be cited in other cases but is not binding on any other court, nor does it affect §922(g).

Whether Judge Coleman was playing games, she was just about locked into this finding. As an inferior court to the Seventh, she should be following their rules, no matter how bad.

Nothing in this case screams that it is a violation of Heller or Seventh Circuit case law.

As an absolutist regarding the Constitution, I have to say anything that chips away at §922 or the NFA is a positive outcome.

So it stands like this, to me:

18 U.S.C. §922 is unconstitutional. Being an illegal alien is grounds for deportation.

Bibliography

Unlawful Acts, 18 U.S.C. (U.S. 1968)
United States v. Carbajal-Flores, No. 20-cr-00613 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 19, 2022)
Staples V. United States, 128 L. Ed. 2d 608 (1994)
District of Columbia v. Heller, 467 U.S. 837 (2008)
United States V. Mariano a. Meza-Rodriguez, 798 F.3d 664 (7th Cir. 2015)
Caetano v. Massachusetts, 136 S. Ct. 1027 (2016)
New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. V. Bruen, 142 S.Ct. 2111 (U.S. 2022)
United State of America v. Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, No. 20-cr-00613 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 8, 2024)
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Those who forget the past…. Is Bryan Malinowski the new Ken Ballew?

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The brother of the Little Rock airport executive shot by federal agents serving a search warrant says he is fearful his brother may not survive and questions the timing of the incident.

Bryan Malinowski, 53, was injured in a shootout with agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives at his west Little Rock home Tuesday morning.

His older brother, Matthew Malinowski, told NBC News reporter Deon Hampton that the family was not sure if the Clinton National Airport executive director was “going to make it in the next 24 hours” while confirming his brother was shot in the head during the exchange of gunfire.

“There’s something fishy here. The ATF went after him in the worst possible way,” he told NBC News reporter Deon Hampton. “There’s no reason why they couldn’t have arrested him at work at the airport.”

Malinowski also said it seemed odd that his brother could be entangled with the law, noting that he made more than $250,000 a year in salary, lived in a nice suburb with collections of guns and coins and was well connected in the Natural State.

‘Something stinks to high hell;’ Brother of LIT director shot by ATF agent speaks out on shooting | KARK

The little beep of memory kept going off in my brain since yesterday and just earlier the data came through: This smells about the same as the Ken Ballew case where ATF raided his house for allegedly owning unregistered grenades. It turned out to be some plastic grenades and some practice ones which you could legally find (and probably still) at gun shows. Ballew got shot in the head, but survived and had a tough life after. He sued the Federal Government, but as usual for the times, the ATF could do no wrong in the eyes of a judge. Ballew was a fan of muzzle loaders and as such had black powder and caps in his home which the Feds and the judge used to excuse the warrant and the consequences under the nefarious “constructive possession” argument.

“This Court finds that several of the grenades seized by the federal agents on June 7, 1971 in Ballew’s apartment, in combination with components likewise seized, were firearms as defined in the National Firearms Act and had not been registered as required by law.”

Ballew v. United States, 389 F. Supp. 47 (D. Md. 1975) :: Justia

Everything Old is Back again?

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The Carbajal-Flores decision and illegals doing the jobs Americans won’t

Allow me to don my tinfoil hat and extrapolate the Carbajal-Flores decision to a potentially horrific end.

First, let me set the stage.

Chicago:

Officer Exodus: 1,000+ Chicago cops left the job last year

Last August, the number of sworn officers plunged to 11,611, its lowest level in years. The department was down 1,742 officers from its peak four years earlier.

“What we really started to notice over the last few years is we didn’t have the manpower to man the beat cars,” said recently retired Chicago police lieutenant John Garrido.

A deeper dive into the data by WGN Investigates found 35% of the officers who left the department last year resigned as opposed to retired.

“Those officers aren’t just quitting and staying home,” Garrido said. “I know many of them. They’re going to other law enforcement agencies.” Garrido attributes to the increase in resignations to what he labels as a toxic work environment in which officers don’t feel supported by police leaders, the mayor or the county’s top prosecutor.

Chicago police have expanded their recruitment efforts to try to fill their depleted ranks. Nine-hundred-and-fifty new officers were hired last year but that’s still short of the 1,046 who left.

New York City:

NYPD cops leave force in alarming rate — over 2,500 turned in badges so far in 2023

New York’s Finest continue to bolt from the job at an alarming rate, according to new data obtained by The Post — and some cops worry the exodus will only get worse because the city plans to cancel the next five Police Academy classes, shrinking the nation’s largest police force to the smallest its been in decades.

A total of 2,516 NYPD cops have left so far this year, the fourth highest number in the past decade and 43% more than the 1,750 who hightailed it in 2018, before the pandemic and crime spikes hit the city, NYPD pension data show.

The number of cops quitting before they reach the 20 years required to receive their full pensions also skyrocketed from 509 in 2020 to 1,040 so far this year — an alarming 104% increase, the data show.

The years of departures and lack of replacements are now taking a toll, forcing the cops who remain on the job to work “inhumane amounts of forced overtime,” Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry said.

Los Angeles:

LAPD dwindles to smallest force since 1990s due to ‘anti-police rhetoric,’ police union says

Department struggling to hire new recruits amid challenges

The Los Angeles Police Department has shrunk to its smallest size since the 1990s as officers resign in droves and officer morale sinks to an all-time low.

The number of officers employed fell below 9,000 at the end of July, a figure estimated by the city’s largest police union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL). They say the high cost of living and morale issues are making it impossible for the city to maintain its goal of maintaining 9,500 officers.

LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the Board of Police Commissioners that the incoming academy class only has 29 recruits.

Since 2020, the LAPD has lost more than 1,000 officers. It’s a trend seen nationwide as big cities struggle to retain officers. On Tuesday, the Minneapolis police chief said the situation is “unsustainable” as the department is losing officers faster than it can hire them.

New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Seattle are also experiencing severe staffing issues in the wake of the 2020 riots – which sparked from the death of George Floyd at the hands Minneapolis police officers – citing low morale among officers.

Across the country police are quitting.

A combination of political factors, including anti-police attitudes becoming mainstream among Democrat politicians and a lack of prosecution that makes policing effectively useless, have demoralized police.

Nobody wants to be a cop.

Let’s add a second layer to this shit cake.

LAPD WORKING TO ALLOW NON-CITIZEN DACA RECIPIENTS TURNED OFFICERS ABILITY TO CARRY FIREARM FULL-TIME

California passed a law that allows non-U.S. citizens to serve as police officers.

Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said his department is working to allow non-citizen DACA recipients who are officers the ability to carry a firearm, full-time.

California passed a law that allows non-U.S. citizens to serve as police officers.

“We think the DACA-mented people have a dream of becoming full-fledged members of our society,” said Francisco Moreno of COFEM. “Their loyalty is proven, and they excel in many fields.”

However, there are federal restrictions regarding DACA recipients having guns. They could have police-issued weapons on duty, but wouldn’t be allowed to take them home like other officers.

Moore said the department is looking to see how to make off-duty hours part of their work.

Now let’s ice this shit cake and bring it all together.

Illinois judge rules illegal migrants can carry guns

A federal judge in Illinois appointed by President Barack Obama ruled that the Constitution protects the rights of noncitizens who enter the US illegally after a Mexican immigrant living in Chicago was found in possession of a handgun.

US District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled earlier this month that a federal ban on undocumented immigrants owning firearms is unconstitutional, and dismissed charges against Heriberto Carbajal-Flores, who was arrested in 2020 after violating a federal law that prohibits noncitizens from possessing guns.

Forget DACA and off-duty prohibitions, illegals can now have guns.

So what stops a progressive city from hiring illegals as police officers?

We’re constantly told that illegals will do the work Americans don’t want to do at pay less than what Americans will accept.

Typically, that has meant things like picking lettuce or tarring roofs.

Now that illegals can carry guns, that very well might mean being cops.

They will bring the corruption, brutality, and disregard for civil rights from the shit hole countries they come from to American policing.

That is a feature, not a bug.

These are the officers who will kick in your door and seize your guns on orders to do so.

They don’t respect your rights. They will not disobey an unconstitutional order.

They have no vulnerable family here that they fear reprisals against.

Thru are the perfect brute squad political enforcers, loyal to the party that pays them and keeps them in this country.

Of course, if this begins to happen, you know the cartels will send members to join US police departments to serve the cartels in uniform.

I know this might sound far fetched now, but explain to me where my logic is wrong.

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Chicago Sues Car Manufacture for Faulty Design

The city of Chicago is suing Toyota, accusing the company that makes one of the most popular vehicles in America of “willfully” ignoring a design that allows users to install third-party modifications such as more powerful aftermarket engines.

These modifications make the vehicles more powerful. For example, a 2.5L Tacoma can be upgraded by a user to have a 4.0L engine.

According to the suit, these allow anyone to circumvent long-standing federal and state fuel efficiency regulations. These replacement engines are available for anybody to order over the Internet.

Such an engine replacement can substantially increase the horsepower available. This can lead to loss of control by driver/operators.

While Toyota does manufacture these engines, they are for other vehicles. Third-party vendors are creating the swap in capabilities.

However, the suit accuses Toyota of making a “willful decision to not take meaningful action to address this problem”. They claim that other manufactures have designs that make third-party engine swaps more difficult or expensive.

The city claims that they have confiscated many of these Toyota vehicles with overpowered engines in the last few years.

You guys can go read the article in full:

 

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The need for a remote cache.

Around 2:35 p.m., Little Rock firefighters carrying a power saw and a Halligan tool —a large pry bar— were seen walking toward the house. An ATF agent was overheard saying they were at the scene to help agents open a safe in Malinowski’s house,

Arkansas airport executive director, ATF agent wounded in Little Rock home shootout – CBS News

This is something I have been musing about for a while now: If you are involved in a defensive shooting, you will have any firearm you have with you confiscated as evidence.  If the shooting is away from home, then it will be only what we have with you. But if it is at home or where you have all your weapons, you are pretty much left disarmed and won’t see them for long time.

I believe one needs to have a cache of weapons and ammo legally stashed somewhere or with somebody you trust. Mind you, if the legal proceedings make it illegal for you to be armed, then you should not add to your crap pile and even get somebody innocent involved in a felony. But otherwise, the idea of being unarmed and probably a target of retaliation by a Bad Guy’s fellow criminals is just plain stupid and suicidal.

Just a thought.

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Nothing was set on fire this time.

Federal agents were involved in a shootout early Tuesday as they tried to serve a search warrant at the Little Rock home of the person who leads the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport, authorities said.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said agents were trying to serve the warrant just after 6 a.m. at a home in west Little Rock when someone inside the home fired gunshots at the agents. The agents returned fire, striking the shooter, who was identified as Bryan Malinowski, 53, the executive director for the airport.

Malinowski was treated at the scene before being taken to an area hospital, Arkansas State Police said. His condition was not immediately available later Tuesday.

An ATF agent, whose identity was not released, was also shot in the exchange of gunfire but suffered a non-life-threatening wound, officials said. The agent, too, was taken to an area hospital for treatment.

Neither the ATF, state police nor federal prosecutors would provide details of what agents were looking for, citing an ongoing investigation.

Around 2:35 p.m., Little Rock firefighters carrying a power saw and a Halligan tool —a large pry bar— were seen walking toward the house. An ATF agent was overheard saying they were at the scene to help agents open a safe in Malinowski’s house,

 

Arkansas airport executive director, ATF agent wounded in Little Rock home shootout – CBS News

It is interesting to read the assorted headlines of this incident so far. Half start with “Executive wounded/injured” and the other half with “ATF agent wounded/injured.” There was a time that the Media would immediately default towards the ATF agent without exception.

 

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